


The secret origins of Felicity Smoak's card-counting skills

by Actually_Felicity_Smoak



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Spoilers through 3x05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 23:43:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5352806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actually_Felicity_Smoak/pseuds/Actually_Felicity_Smoak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While going undercover at Alonzo's casino, Felicity recalls her former card-counting exploits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The secret origins of Felicity Smoak's card-counting skills

**Author's Note:**

> The thoughts and opinions herein expressed belong to the characters expressing them, and do not necessarily represent the views of the author.

"I can count cards. It's all probability theory and mathematics. Have you met me? Bottom line - I know my way around a casino."

She stopped just short of blurting out _I grew up in Vegas!_ It was not going to calm Oliver's already-jangled nerves to learn that her mother was the most bimbo-y of all cocktail waitress bimbos in all of Nevada.

But she did know her way around a casino. She knew the fastest route to any location in any casino on the Las Vegas Strip ... although it was possible she wouldn't fit in some of them any more. Not only had she grown up in Vegas, she'd grown up in a casino -- where was her mother going to find the money for daycare? It was against the rules, of course, but most of the waitresses did it, and the casino managers turned a blind eye as long as the kids didn't call attention to themselves. Felicity had known the rules to all the card games by 5, and could count cards for Blackjack by the time she was 8. She hadn't really _meant_ to do it, but she wasn't legally allowed to sit at the tables, so she had to learn to track Blackjack games in her head -- what she _would_ have gotten if she was sitting _there_ and she'd chosen to hit -- and once you could do that, a single running tally of three card categories was pretty trivial. (She'd invented a more complex, but more reliable, system by the time she was 10, which had been a big hit at MIT.)

"Password?"

"Snapdragon." Felicity passed through the doors, and nostalgia hit with the familiar scent of cigarette smoke, alcohol, and slowly-oxidizing playing card finish.

"One stack of high society, please." Felicity smiled, remembering her first foray into casino-scamming. 

> Everyone in her mother's casino knew her, so she'd gone down a block, and across the street. She'd found a man with light brown hair, dark eyes, and a look of desperation, and made him an offer." _You_ are gonna get _me_ my money back?"  The man snorted, but the look of desperation remained.
> 
> "Yes." 11-year-old Felicity tried to look confident. "I tell you what to play. You give me half your winnings. We don't stop until you've made back at least what you arrived in Vegas with."
> 
> The man stared at her for a long moment. Then his eyes fell, and he muttered, "Hell, my wife's gonna kill me anyways. Might as well give it a shot."
> 
> She'd taken his hand, and they'd talked their way past the guard by explaining that Felicity was his daughter, and was delightfully well-behaved, and she only wanted to see the lights. The man promised that his "daughter" would remain within arm's reach of him at all times, and the guard finally relented.
> 
> Her new "daddy" handed over all his cash to the pit boss, glanced at Felicity, and said, "One stack of high society, please." Standing by his chair, Felicity had given him some really _bad_ advice to start off with -- lost him half his money.  But once everyone's guard was down, it was easy enough to guide him. "I think you should get a card, daddy!" when the running count was high; "This is boring; can we go?" when it was low. When they reached the pre-arranged goal, Felicity practically climbed into his lap whining "Daddy! I'm _hungry_...."  He cashed in, they walked out, and they split the money in the parking lot.
> 
> When Felicity woke up the next morning, she could hear her mother counting tips at the kitchen table. "95.. 96, 97,98,99.... 700.. 701, 702.  I don't remember making this much.  I must have miscounted... Oh, God. We can make rent.  _Barukh attah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam, she'asah li kol tzorki._ "  The tears Donna Smoak would never show her daughter burst out in the late-morning silence of the apartment. 
> 
> Felicity smiled. If she could do this a couple times a week, they'd even be able to get the electricity turned back on.

"Miss, can you come with me, please?" Although she'd been expecting the request, Felicity still startled at the voice at her side.  Somehow, no matter how many times it happened, it always surprised her. 

> "Miss, can you come with me, please?"  12-year-old Felicity gasped, and looked up into the face of the casino employee. The request was phrased politely, but Felicity knew it would turn aggressive, fast. 
> 
> "Sir, is something wrong?"  Her "daddy" -- quicker on the uptake than many she'd worked with -- jumped to her defense. "She's my daughter, I promised the guard she'd never be out of arm's reach."
> 
> "Of course, sir." The employee said. He was acting like security, but Felicity recognized the uniform of a pit boss. Actually.. oh God. He was the pit boss she'd scammed last week. How could she have done this? She was careful to spread it around, and never work the same pit boss twice. She never even worked the same casino twice in a month. How could this be happening? "I won't take her far -- just right over there" he pointed to an empty table. "You'll be able to see her the whole time."
> 
> "Well... OK." Her "daddy" sat back reluctantly, while Felicity tried to control her terror. They couldn't arrest her. She'd memorized the applicable statutes -- if they threatened her, she'd threaten to turn them in for allowing a minor on the casino floor.  She could...
> 
> "Sit down, miss."  Felicity blinked at the pit boss. Of all the possibilities she'd considered, being offered a chair was not among them.  She climbed up into the seat, and held her hands firmly in her lap.
> 
> "What's your name?" Felicity clenched her jaw, and said nothing.  Then, to her surprise, the pit boss grinned.
> 
> "OK, so that was a dumb question. Of course you're not going to answer me. You're way too smart for that, aren't you?"  Felicity eyed him questioningly, but continued to say nothing.
> 
> "You're too smart for this, too.  I'm not the only pit boss who has two jobs, at two different casinos.  It's only a matter of time before you're caught."  Felicity closed her eyes. Of course. Why hadn't she thought of employees moving between casinos? How could she keep track of every employee at every casino? Maybe she could...
> 
> "Try poker."  Her eyes snapped open, and she searched his face.  "When you win money at blackjack, it's the house that loses.  Casino bosses don't like that.  But when you win money at poker, it's the other players that lose; house gets paid its cut just the same.  They don't look as hard for card sharps at the poker tables, and they're a lot easier them when they find them."  He flipped her a little salute, and walked away.

"Oh look, the bathroom. I should have known the manager's office would be down the hall and to the right of the bathroom."  In Vegas, they worked hard to keep the offices well away from the restrooms, actually. They didn't want drunk tourists wandering in the wrong door.  One casino, downtown, actually had an honest-to-God hidden door blocking the administrative wing -- she'd sneaked in with a friend when she was 9.  But of course, an illegal casino in Starling City couldn't be quite so particular. Felicity prayed that this would turn out as well as the last time she'd been brought to a manager's office.

> "Have a seat."  16-year-old Felicity nervously did as she was told. 
> 
> "What's your name?" Felicity clenched her jaw, and said nothing.  To her surprise, the manager smiled slightly.
> 
> "It doesn't have to be your real name, at this juncture. Just give me something I can call you."
> 
> "M...Megan." she stammered out.
> 
> "Megan. Alright. Well, 'Megan', we've been watching you for a couple months now. You're very good at poker.." his voice trailed off, invitingly.
> 
> "I don't play poker. Sir. I'm only 16, and gambling would be illegal." Felicity swallowed, hard.
> 
> "Look, 'Megan'," the manager leaned forward. "We have enough info on you to get you into major trouble. We have footage that would be sufficient to convince a judge that you're cheating at cards. We have lawyers that can argue that your consistent pattern shows a willfulness to gamble that the casino cannot be held responsible for. If it comes down to it, we can pay the fines for letting a minor onto the floor. But I'm guessing the trial would be a major disruption to your life. That is one road we can go down.  Or..."
> 
> Silence stretched, and Felicity broke first. 
> 
> "Or?"
> 
> "Or you can work for me. How long have you been counting cards, Megan?"
> 
> "5 years. Well, 5 years professionally. I kind of have been counting cards as long as I can remember - my mother's a cocktail waitress, and I learned the official algorithm when I was 8, but there's a much better one that I... I'm babbling." She clamped her mouth shut.
> 
> "Just what I thought. And how are you with computers?"
> 
> "I..." Felicity paused, baffled.  "I built a supercomputer with my dad's electronics kit..."
> 
> "Did you now? That's quite impressive. It'll look good on your college applications. You are going to college, yes?"
> 
> "I don't know." Felicity looked down. "I've been accepted to MIT, but..."
> 
> "But supercomputers don't pay tuition. I quite understand.  So. If I were to pay you, say, $250,000 to design a computer system that would comb through security footage to identify card counters, would that be a project you might be interested in?"

She had designed that system, and the next year, a facial-recognition algorithm that would identify card-counters who'd been previously 86'd. She told her mother it was a scholarship, which was ... kind of true. It was money she got for being smart, anyway, and that's all a scholarship was, right?

And now she was Felicity Smoak, professional and respectable IT girl, and no one knew of her secret origins. As long as Oliver and her mother remained on opposite sides of the country, all would be well.


End file.
